Ice hockey/Skelleftea. He broke through with a bang last season. Now, Axel Holmstrom discusses his earlier efforts, #96 in Detroit and Skelleftea's hard pre-season training.

The brthers Daniel and Henrik Sedin scored 14 points apiece in the 2000 playoff as juniors. 15 years ago, the record broke. By an 18-year-old from Moskosel outside Arvidsajaur.

Axel Holmstrom scored 18 points (7 goals and 11 assists) in 15 games in the SHL-finals when Skelleftea eventually lost the final series against Vaxjo 4 games to 2.

"There was a lot of talk, but I try not to get too comfortable or satisfied. I don't want to fall back and be safe, but instead, I want to find new goals to strive for. I try to put it behind me, but of course it was an extremely fun thing. Too bad we couldn't win in the end," says Holmstrom to Norrbotten's Kuriren.

“It’s just another day in what has been a very quick life, but and a wonderful life,” Lindsay said during a phone call last week from Harbor Springs. “I did everything that I love to do, played the greatest game in the world with some of the greatest players in the world, and against some of the greatest players.”

As a player, Lindsay was a showman, entertaining the multitudes as a charter member of the famed Production Line with Sid Abel and Gordie Howe. Lindsay is one of six players to have four Stanley Cup rings from the Wings’ dynasty of the 1950s. He also spearheaded a crusade to form the first NHL players’ association, which led to his trade to Chicago 58 years ago this month.

Lindsay finished playing in 1965, an 11-time all star, who won the Art Ross Trophy in 1950 as the league’s leading point producer, ahead of Abel and Howe, who finished second and third that year. He stepped into the front office as the sixth general manager in franchise history in 1976 and remained at the helm until 1980.

Hockey has given Lindsay a comfortable living, which now begins a 10th decade. He doesn’t dwell on the past. He lives for the here and now, though he says it’s fun to look back occasionally on the previous 89 years.

“I would say yes to that because to go into the twilight of your life, I guess, you never think of too many things,” Lindsay said. “Who thinks about 90 years of age? I played the greatest game in the world and never thought about it. But it’s one day at a time. That’s my philosophy, and now, even more so.”

USA Hockey announced today the five cities that are finalists in contention for hosting the 2018 IIHF World Junior Championship, but Detroit wasn’t one of them.

USA Today’s Kevin Allen (A Michigan native and resident) had reported in February that Detroit was one possible location for the prestigious international tournament, but per today’s announcement, Hockeytown is not in the running.

Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa are under final consideration by USA Hockey.

“We had interest of varying levels from more than a dozen entities,” said Mike Bertsch, assistant executive director of marketing, communications and events for USA Hockey in a release. “In the end, we’re extremely pleased with the group of finalists. The time and effort each put into the materials that were submitted is impressive and we look forward to continued conversations with each of the finalists.”

I did the best that I could to translate Tomas Jurco's interview with his hometown paper yesterday, but it was an incredibly challenging piece, and very thankfully, TMR reader Martin Pohanic was willing to translate the article from Slovak to English.

Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill likes what he sees in Mantha, who has the tools to be a top-six forward in the NHL. He just needs to continue to work hard and overcome some of his inconsistencies.

“The biggest message that Anthony and I have talked about it just the idea that this is a journey,” said Blashill, who coached Manthan in Grand Rapids last season. “He’s run both sides of the gamut where a year ago the expectations were extremely high. There’s a lot of deserved media hype about him, hype within our own organization about him, and then he went through some things, he got injured twice at critical moments of the year. There where different times he had some struggles and it probably wasn’t as easy as he thought it was gonna be coming in. But this is not the end, it’s just part of the journey. Let’s keep coming. Let’s keep working. Let’s keep finding ways to improve and get better.”

Eventually, Mantha produced 15 goals and 33 points in 62 regular-season games with the Griffins. He also chipped in with two goals and two assists in 16 playoff games.

Mantha will return to Traverse City for the annual prospects tourney and Detroit’s main training camp with hopes of making the club’s 23-man roster. It won’t be easy, but this will be the time for the big winger to prove himself in front of the coaching staff.

“Inner drive and perseverance are the two biggest factors for individual success, in my opinion, and he’s going to have to persevere,” Blashill said. “He’s shown that at different times. He’s gonna have to go to work this summer with that inner drive.”

Tomas Jurco's been in the news lately--the Slovak news--and here's his second interview of the day, a discussion with Kosice Dnes (Kosice Today). I'm going to provide a very rough translation of the interview as this one was particularly difficult to work out and is really rough, and one of our KK readers will provide a more precise one tomorrow morning:

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